Bird's eye view of Tokyo from Nikon Headquarters in Shinjuku - Nikon D80 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 1/40thAll you see above I could navigate precisely on foot, by bike or on train, for this was my home neighborhood for six years. Yet I never saw it from so high above until the very end of my time there. If it looks like a maze I can assure you it most certainly was. Passing through it on foot or by train was a constant series of turns, not just left and right, but also up and down in and out of stations, underground street passages and long, very long tunnels. By far the fastest way to get from point A to point B was by bike, especially if one had the nerve to ride out in traffic, though by day or night I only ever found a section of about a quarter mile of road in that entire maze to be risky to ride on.

When friends visited it was a point of pride to lead them on a dizzying path through routes that took months to learn.

I made this photograph from the Nikon Headquarters high up in a skyscraper in Shinjuku, the hub of Tokyo, if not its heart. I lived a 10-minute walk from here, which in Tokyo walking time, is a short distance. You could get hands on with every lens Nikon makes and also bring your Nikon DSLR in for a free sensor cleaning if it was still within warranty. You were also treated to the view you see above. I of course had to shoot through windows to make this shot. I erased the spots on the windows visible in the sky portion of the photo.

If you can believe it, this place felt as much like home to me as any place I have ever lived.